INnovation through bIg daTa and socIal enTreprEneurship

Project Information

INITIATE

Grant agreement ID: 751510

DOI

10.3030/751510

Project closed

EC signature date 29 March 2017

Start date 1 February 2018

End date 2 March 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 196 400,40

EU contribution

€ 196 400,40

Coordinated by

NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INITIATE (INnovation through bIg daTa and socIal enTreprEneurship)

Reporting period: 2018-02-01 to 2020-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The purpose of this project is to examine and facilitate innovation through big data and social entrepreneurship. INITIATE aims to identify how entrepreneurs and policy makers can benefit from social innovation, take advantage of the big data analytics applications that are available, filter them and proceed to decisions that will help them innovate for social good.

The overall vision of INITIATE has been documented in two works: 1) the Digital Transformation and Sustainability (DTS) model, and the Big Data for Social Innovation (BD4SI) framework.
The main outcome of INITIATE was the theoretical framework, that was developed and tested empirically, leading to big data for social innovation framework (BD4SI), that builds on the theory of affordances combined with concepts from institutional theory. We identify five BDA affordances, that are predictability, mappability, assessability, discernability, and researchability as perceived by the actors who are involved in social innovations. Furthermore, we identified several institutional voids and supports that influence the actualization of BDA affordances. The successful actualization of them indicates traces of societal change in three specific areas: environment, education, and socioeconomic development. INITIATE contributes by offering BD4SI as a holistic framework to understand the process by which BDA affordances facilitate social innovation for societal change in developing countries

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project started by conducting a systematic literature review in the area of big data analytics for social good. The reviews looked at theoretical perspectives, antecedents to success from big data analytics, social innovation, and how big data analytics can be used to facilitate societal change. The review identified drivers, enablers, and barriers for successful implementation of big data for social good. In addition to the literature reviews, two separate theoretical papers were written. These papers pave the ground for the development of the framework of big data for social innovation. Building on the knowledge from previous projects we designed and organized the “ICT-enabled social innovation for social good” as part of the Experts in Teams course of NTNU. During these activities the students designed and developed ICT-solutions to societal challenges. The project collaborated directly with EU-H2020 - CADENT, also hosted at NTNU.

We conducted an empirical study in a developing country, to study how big data analytics can be used to solve societal challenges. Initially, the project did not envision a study in a developing country, however this turned out to be very beneficial for it. To this end, the fellow travelled to Nepal to conduct this study. We conducted interviewed and focus groups with 26 participants. Moreover, we conducted observations both during the interviews but also during the field trip as we were becoming familiar with the various social innovation projects that the participants worked on. The study examines how big data analytics affordances facilitate the social innovation process that may lead to societal change in a developing country context. The study shows that to benefit from big data analytics, actors need to realize the interrelation between big data analytics and their affordances, and the social innovation process, within the institutional context (e.g. governmental organizations, financial institutions, and markets) that they operate.

The exploitation activities included continuing work as well as promoting findings and best practices to academic and industry professionals.
In continuing research in line with future needs identified during INITIATE, both the fellow and the supervisor have established, and continue to work with a large network of world-renowned experts including Prof. Paul Pavlou, Prof. Yogesh Dwivedi, Prof. Vassilis Kostakos among others.

Continued service to the academic community has been done and is ongoing. The fellow has been a Guest Editor for several journals and a track chair on different conferences. In 2019, the fellow was the General Chair of the I3E conference on e-business, e-services, and e-society hosted by NTNU in Trondheim, Norway.
Currently the results of the project are been exploited in multiple ways, including the proposal writing of several projects from areas that emerged during the research period.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Overall, INITIATE had a direct and indirect impact on private and public organizations that examine ways of how to use big data analytics for societal value as well as for business value, impacting researchers, educators, and policy makers. The outcomes of the research conducted provides a roadmap on how to employ big data analytics for social innovation, within the institutional context that they operate.
INITIATE identified institutional voids and supports reveal what is needed and what is missing for actors to actualize BDA affordances for social innovation, by employing the BD4SI framework. These findings show that institutional voids do not always hinder the social innovation process, but can also stimulate the generation of new innovative ideas, as a workaround For example, in Nepal, the lack of economic resources directed actors to international funding agencies leading to the creation of new international networks. The voids identified in this project, can inform the government and policy makers on what kind of support is needed to overcome them and help actors in their mission. Societies and their people may think of many new ideas in their daily lives, either small ones that solve problems of their daily routine, or larger ones that may solve problems of a whole community. These new ideas, or innovations, under the proper circumstances (e.g. strategic planning, diffusion) may be adopted by other individuals, communities, or organizations.

With regard to research impact and effect on the academic community, the work published during the project and the publications under consideration currently have greatly exceed initial goals. The published work so far has had a significant impact on the research community, with thousands of reads so far (measured via ResearchGate) with numerous citations (measured via GoogleScholar). In addition, the fellow has been invited to give guest talks in several nationally and internationally, reflecting the high impact towards the research community.

With regards to impact to educators and policy makers, BD4SI describes a process that can guide practitioners on how to connect BDA to societal change through social innovation process. For example, the affordance of discernability, leads to proper mapping of economic status of the citizen that can be enabled through BDA, and contribute towards poverty alleviation. Our findings show that there are specific initiatives, such as the Digital Nepal, that are formed to address both existing voids as well as new ones that may appear along with the technological advancement, with strong impacts on the future of the society. Such initiatives, that deal with digital governance and digital infrastructure, can enable the creation of sustainable value in a country. These findings have been viewed by policy makers towards new interventions in funding schemes and priority areas in education, leading also to new project applications by the fellow and/or his network.

Logo